9 comments:

I suspect that the first character might be a crudely done simplified 龍(龙), 九 is only composed of 2 strokes, this one seems to have more. Either way, it's a poorly drawn tattoo that doesn't conform to the calligraphy strokes of Chinese, let alone have any meaning other than what it means to the bearer.

People need to understand that stroke order and count are not simply a matter of aesthetics, the correct stroke count is as important as crossing a "t" and dotting an "i" in English, the wrong stroke count can render a character illegible, as the first character and 由 amply illustrate.

If people really want to get a tattoo that expresses something in Chinese, I don't think it's too wise to rely on the discretion of the tattoo artist to take liberties with the design, this is barely Chinese.

i totally agree with adam (well, except for that the first character might be 龙; there aren't enuf "strokes" there for that. it's not unusual for the tattoo artist to split one stroke into two, like in 艺 and 由). these kinds of tattoos are my least favorite to see. it shows a complete lack of understanding of how chinese is written. there's an utter disregard for stroke order, count and the whole stroke aesthetic, and the result is oh so hideous. it reminds me of that horrible "asian font" a lot of chinese restaurants like to use to make their signs in roman letters look more brushy and "chinese." why would anyone think that they could reapply that to chinese writing is beyond me. these tattoos just scream ugliness and ignorance.

generally, when you write vertically, you keep writing vertically, and when you write horizontally, you keep writing horizontally. but seeing as how "non-traditional" the rest of the tattoo is, i don't think it matter anymore.

For instance, in a magazine where texts flows vertically most of the time, you can insert a pair of horizontally arranged characters in a vertially lined sentence in some cases. This is pretty common among newspapers and magazines in Japan.